Our Christmas traditions have been through a lot of reinventions since our father died 15 years ago. For a few years we didn’t do anything, then we spent a few years trying to make our trees as fancy as possible, in response to our entirely-too-handmade-and/or-threadbare childhood ornaments, and then we swung back into heavy nostalgia for the tattered favorites of our youth. Now we think we’ve struck a pretty good balance. Our ornament collection (which is a lot vaster than what got hung up this year) runs the gamut from the ’70s-tacular and pretty well battered…

It’s a gingham gingerbread house made of out cloth-covered styrofoam and yarn, of course. And no, it wasn’t made by one of us. This bad boy was purchased. Nice work, Boomer and Dad!

…to the very, very pretty and modern-day.

After decades of providing all the felt-and-sequin ornaments a tree could ever hope for, Boomer has settled on this decidedly not handmade one as her favorite. Can you blame her?

No, we’re never going to be invited to put Maple Hoo on some themed-Christmas house tour, but that’s okay with us.